Escorts Kubota is an Indian engineering company that has spent over eighty years putting machinery into the hands of farmers and builders - tractors, harvesters, cranes and excavators - and is now the strategic India hub for Japan’s Kubota Corporation, which holds a 54% stake. It was founded in 1944 in Faridabad on the conviction that Indian agriculture and construction deserved world-class equipment, and that origin story still explains the company’s recurring approach: find a hard, physical task that millions of people do every day, build a machine that does it better, and then wrap that machine in financing, spare parts and digital services so the customer never has to look elsewhere. That formula - a manufacturing core surrounded by a services ring - now runs across two main businesses, unified under a single “One EKL” structure after the merger of its Kubota joint ventures in 2024.
Business segments
Two engines at different stages - a tractor-and-farm-solutions platform at national scale that generates the bulk of revenue, and a smaller construction-equipment business built on the same manufacturing and partnership backbone.
1. Agri machinery: the mechanisation platform for India’s farms
A three-brand tractor portfolio covering every price point, wrapped in a growing layer of farm implements, engines, spare parts and captive finance - so the company earns not just from the first sale but from everything the farmer needs afterwards.
- Three brands, three wallets - Kubota serves the premium, precision-farming buyer; Farmtrac covers the mid-range multi-utility segment; and Powertrac fights for the value-conscious core-farming customer, together spanning light, utility and mid-range horsepower with the above-40 HP category contributing nearly two-thirds of tractor sales.
- Built where the demand is - total assembly capacity of 1,70,000 tractors a year runs across three plants in Faridabad, one in Pune, one in Chennai and one in Poland, with domestic production hitting roughly 1,30,900 units in FY26 and capacity utilisation at about 85% in the final quarter.
- Distribution that reaches the village - more than 1,600 dealers across 28 states and 8 union territories put tractors within reach of small and marginal farmers, and a unified dealer management system plus digital apps like Humdum and Serve Geni now connect the customer from purchase through predictive service.
- Kubota’s global supply chain, Indian cost base - the partnership gives EKL shared engineering, joint product development and access to Kubota’s export channels, which carried approximately 60% of its own export volumes in FY26, while a supplier kaizen programme is upgrading India’s cost-competitive vendor base to global quality standards.
2. Construction equipment: the pick-and-carry specialist scaling into earthmoving
The company is one of the world’s largest makers of pick-and-carry cranes - a 41% market share in India - and is using that niche dominance as a base to push into mini excavators and backhoe loaders, where the market is shifting its way.
- A crane franchise with a moat - EKL holds a 41.4% share of the Indian pick-and-carry crane market, a category where it has expanded its leadership, giving it pricing power and dealer pull even as the broader crane segment declined 13% in FY26.
- Riding the mini-excavator wave - while cranes and backhoe loaders shrank, the mini-excavator segment grew 38%, and EKL’s 19.5% share in that category - built on Kubota-designed machines like the U22-3 and the newly launched U22-6 - positions it to capture urban and confined-space construction demand.
- One plant, expanding capacity - the Ballabhgarh facility has a production capacity of 10,000 units a year for its Construction Equipment segment and ran at 47% utilisation in FY26, but a 154-acre greenfield site in Uttar Pradesh has been secured to build next-generation manufacturing for both tractors and construction equipment.
- Exports are the incremental lever - international sales moved from roughly 3-3.5% of segment revenue to about 5-6% in FY26, with machines now reaching more than 30 countries across Africa, Southeast Asia and SAARC markets.
Group structure and partners
Kubota Corporation of Japan is the 54% majority shareholder, and the 2024 amalgamation of two joint ventures into the listed entity created a single operating company with no parallel structures - one balance sheet, one dealer network, one supply chain.
- Kubota Corporation, a US$24 billion global tractor and machinery leader founded in 1890, began its partnership with Escorts in 2016, became a joint promoter in 2022, and reached its current 54.07% stake after the merger of the joint ventures in August 2024.
- The Composite Scheme of Amalgamation, effective September 1, 2024, folded Escorts Kubota India Private Limited and Kubota Agricultural Machinery India Private Limited - both 60:40 JVs between Kubota and EKL - directly into the listed company, creating the unified “One EKL” entity.
- The subsidiary roster includes a captive NBFC (Escorts Kubota Finance Limited) for retail tractor financing, a 100% European subsidiary in Poland (Farmtrac Tractors Europe), and a crop-solutions arm, while the former Railway Equipment Division was sold to Sona BLW Precision Forgings for ₹1,600 crore in June 2025 to focus capital entirely on agri and construction machinery.